As the 2024 TV schedule offers a lot of material to stream through various platforms and means, Season 25 of the hit talk show Hot Ones is one of the recent returns set to entertain. But while host Sean Evans experiences the sauces ahead of time, he doesn’t always know the curveballs a potential guest will throw when trying to book them.
The latest case in point is a story that Evans shared about a wild pitch that only Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson could have ever thrown. Teasing a profile interview with Hot Ones’ iconic host, Bloomberg shared that the popular program still has some white whale guests out in the waters.
When discussing how the Red One star is still very much on that list, Sean Evans shared the following anecdote from the one time that booking came close to happening:
We've been pitching [The Rock] obviously for years and one time I got a note back that was like, ‘Would you be willing to do, instead of wings, grilled salmon strips?’ And in my head I was like, that had to come from his mouth … that's as close as we’ve gotten. And then it fell through.
Sean Evans - Bloomberg
I find it absolutely crazy that the world can claim Conan O’Brien’s viral Hot Ones appearance in the history books before Dwayne Johnson has even set foot in this arena. I mean, you just need to take a look at The Rock’s Wrestlemania 40 cheat meal and know that this man can indeed wolf down a row of chicken wings.
While I don’t think the sauce would be the problem, I have a theory on where the difficulty may lie in getting this wrestling/acting legend on the show. Though Dwayne Johnson can easily handle the calories, I’m thinking that grilled salmon strips request is something that would align with the diets that help the Fast Saga vet keep his impressive physique.
With cheat day spoils only occurring at specific points in his schedule, a random taping of Hot Ones would theoretically need to hit that window to allow for actual chicken wings on the menu. So to keep the scheduling open, and everyone happy, grilled salmon strips would be the way to go.
Or maybe Johnson read about Jennifer Lawrence throwing up after Hot Ones and figured that gorging on salmon would be the better way to go. There’s honestly a lot of room for discussion, as we still don’t know how Sean Evans got so close, but still remained so far away.
No matter what the truth is, it cannot be denied that a hypothetical Hot Ones episode with Dwayne Johnson is something the world could get behind. Especially when potential challenges like doubling the grilled salmon strips for both Johnson and Sean Evans could raise the stakes in a pretty exciting way. For now, you’ll have to just keep watching the series as new episodes continue to hit on YouTube.
If you want to revisit random episodes of Hot Ones on subscription streaming, you’re in luck! Thanks to the power of a Peacock subscription, you can feast on as many reruns as you like. Meanwhile, Dwayne Johnson’s Red One is set to deck the halls in theaters on November 15th, so maybe we’ll see this dream team play that gourmet game in the near future after all.
